Of the Seemingly Innocent Phishing Mail to Identity Theft

By Amanda RandellPublished: Monday, February 15th, 2010

Man has yet proven himself to be on top of the hierarchy via his invention of no less than the internet. It is through this latest craze that even the mud people of the Amazon rain forest can shop for made to order spears by just clicking their mouse and have their goods delivered the next day. Families who are also separated by the Pacific Ocean can actually talk to and see each other and will only need to wait for seconds for their connection to take place. And it is also because of the so called internet that the crime, identity theft grew popular.

Nowadays, not only will you need to protect your material things (car, cash, house, cellular phones) but your identity as well because it is also on the list of “prime commodities” for thieves. Identity theft happens when one acts as if he is you. This means that he will make purchases and loans under your name. A scammer will scrape your bank account until the balance reaches zero and will enjoy all your hard earned money. Good for him, bad for you.

As one form of identity theft prevention, beware of phishing mails emailed to your address. As the name suggest, phishing mail “fishes” information about you. It is an email (short for electronic mail) which tells you that either you have won an enormous amount of money from a lottery of an unknown country or that a long lost lover from the depths of the oceans is attempting revive your romance so they appear to be in desperate need of ways to contact you. On the other hand, you are requested to email back personal information like social security number, name, credit card numbers, etc.

Phishing mails are one form of fraud keeping identity thieves businesses alive. Though we cannot blame the internet for this, we can always be careful in our transaction using the internet. One way of identity theft protection is being vigilant to the emails we receive and the information we dish out. Identifying phishing mails is the key. Make it a habit to check an email for fraud by asking yourself these 3 test questions (Is it addressed to you, do you know the sender and where is it linked). By doing this, you are actually opting for identity theft prevention rather than identity repair.

Identity theft prevention is preventing phishing mails to enter you system. But because scammers will do everything they can to steal from you, it is wise not to give attention to things like this. When you also have identity theft prevention software like anti-hacker programs that can easily be downloaded or bought at department stores, you are giving these culprits a hard time and giving your identity a fight.

Man can invent both god and bad. It is but human nature to be lured into making money the easy way. There will always be an identity theft to represent the bad side of human nature and identity theft prevention to represent the brainy good side of humans.